Does D have too many features?

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 28-04-2012 22:43, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 04/28/2012 09:58 PM, foobar wrote:
>> On Saturday, 28 April 2012 at 18:48:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> Andrei and I had a fun discussion last night about this question. The
>>> idea was which features in D are redundant and/or do not add
>>> significant value?
>>>
>>> A couple already agreed upon ones are typedef and the cfloat, cdouble
>>> and creal types.
>>>
>>> What's your list?
>>
>> D has a lot of ad-hock features which make the language
>> needlessly large and complex. I'd strive to replace these with
>> better general purpose mechanisms.
>>
>> My list:
>> * I'd start with getting rid of foreach completely. (not just
>> foreach_reverse).
>
>
> foreach is very useful. Have you actually used D?

Removing it would be craziness.

>
>> This is nothing more than a fancy function with
>> a delegate parameter.
>>
>
> That would be opApply.
>
>> * enum - enum should be completely redesigned to only implement
>> what it's named after: enumerations.
>>
>
> What is the benefit?
>
>> * version - this does not belong in a programming language. Git
>> is a much better solution.
>>
>
> So you'd maintain a git branch for every OS if there is some small part
> that is OS-dependent? I don't think that is a better approach at all.

That is absolutely horrible. It's not how branches are meant to be used.

>
>> * di files - a library should encapsulate all the info required
>> to use it. Java Jars, .Net assemblies and even old school; Pascal
>> units all solved this long ago.
>>
>> * This is a big one: get rid of *all* current compile time
>> special syntax.
>
> What would that be exactly?
>
>> It should be replaced by a standard compilation
>> API and the compiler should be able to use plugins/addons.
>
> Are you serious?
>
>> This would reduce the size of the language to half of its current
>> size, maybe even more.
>
> I am certain that it would not.
>
>
> You missed to present the 'general purpose mechanisms'.


-- 
- Alex